Nobody can trust a resume anymore

Shaper. Steve Schaefer. Sorry, I should have said that at the beginning.

Yeah. Schaefer. Yes. Schaefer. Schaefered. Sometimes the names. I get I get it. I get it. Yeah. And look, you're not the only one. Plenty of people get that most t people get that wrong. They always say Shaffer and it's it's or something like that. It's Schaefer.

thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Well, it's been it's been a long road. I've been in this this industry, this business for over twenty years, Micholas, and and so it it kind of started out a little bit as an an accident. I was actually in the financial industry in the in the banking industry and You know, this was I'm gonna kind of date myself a little bit when I say this. This was so long ago that when you actually applied for jobs by getting a newspaper and looking at the newspaper and and circling jobs that you might have interest in, that's how long ago this was that I was looking at these jobs and I and I saw a job that I was kind of curious about. It had behavioral science in the description and all these different things. I said, I don't I don't know if I would even you know, qualify for something like this, but it really piqued my interest. And so I applied and got an interview. And this was with a a firm that was selling behavioral assessments. And I knew nothing about that field, didn't really have a clue, but it was very intriguing to me. 'cause I was always kinda interested in psychology. I had my degree in marketing, but I just was very intrigued by that. And so I got the job, started learning. about that world, really dove into it kind of headfirst. And and so I was with that organization for about 12 years and really cut my teeth there, really had a great understanding of the behavioral science, how you know building competencies and and you know the behavioral behaviors that feed into those competencies and those competencies that are necessary for jobs, which are you know whatever jobs are most critical for those organizations and the competencies that are most critical for those jobs so people can have the most success within their roles. And then coaching people within those certain areas so they can get better in those positions. You know, that was stuff that I'll I was became started to become very passionate about. So when when that organization ended up being purchased and and then you know they were bought out and I had left just before that. And then a buddy of mine that I had worked with at that organization opened up Talent Thrive and asked me to come on board. And I said, heck yes, let's do it. And we hadn't done any of the software yet, but we both knew that that's a part of the business we wanted to build together. And so that's when we built the Talent Thrive snapshot, the Talent Thrive dashboard, and we developed our own assessment, which is called the Talent Thrive snapshot. And so that's that's when we decided, look, we we didn't want to resell another tool. We didn't want to just use someone else's that was the same old thing. We wanted to build something new, we wanted to take all of the great learnings that we had from that space and build something that people really needed, but was simplistic enough to where people understood what they were looking at. That was really the challenge in that business is people were making it way too complicated. And so we wanted to make it simple. So that people like yourself, people like me could understand what we were looking at. We didn't need a IO psychologist or some sort of very expensive consultant to tell us what we were trying to look at. But we could really make great people decisions with that data without having to use someone that that costs 250 bucks an hour to tell us what we were looking at. So we built an incredible tool, built an incredible dashboard that our clients can use. to make those people decisions, whether it's on the hiring side or whether it's developing their existing people. And we're we're continuing to do that and it's we're we're just really passionate about people and making great people decisions.

Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the things that is a kind of a common misconception is how to leverage a tool like this. What are the kind of the best practices? Because I think one of the things that a lot of people have not been told is what exactly can this be used for? What are the do's and don'ts? And unfortunately in that space, there's been a lot of lot of companies that have used it kind of as a go or no go, kind of a hire or fire kind of tool. And that's really not the purpose of these kinds of tools. It is a it is just that. It is a tool to help you make Better people decisions. It is not the end all be all of whether or not you hire someone. It is a piece of the puzzle. It can be a helpful tool to help you decide whether or not you want to bring someone on board, but it is not the end all decision maker of whether or not you should bring someone on board. And it certainly should not be a tool that you just ultimately decide whether or not you're firing someone based on the results of a tool like this. So I think that's, and unfortunately, there are companies out there. That use tools like this is kind of that that go or no go kind of tool. And that's you know, that's not the intention of these tools. And so, because of that, a lot of people, the the assessment space and these kinds of assessments have a bit of a a negative connotation. They have a negative rap out there in the in the market because people have either had a bad experience with it or they've been one of those people that have been fired or not been hired because of the use of a tool. this and so when they hear this company is using an assessment they have an immediate negative response because they had a negative experience and so I think that's one of the things that when we talk to prospects or people that are going to start using our tool to really make sure they understand the right way to use the tool how what is the the right way to get it set up with their with their employees What is the right way to deliver the message to the employees of how this is going to be used? This is a tool for development. This is not a weapon that's going to be used against you. So really making sure that the communication to the employees is done in the right way so they feel safe. They feel like, okay, this is something that is going to be useful. This is going to be something that's for my development. It's not going to be used against me. So I think that's really the first thing is making sure everyone feels comfortable that this is a good thing. It's not a bad thing that a tool like this is being used. And once you have that, that everybody starts to let their guard down a little bit and the walls start to drop once they know that it's actually a positive that we're using a tool like this. I think that's one of the biggest things that you have to get over when you introduce a tool like this into an organization.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a that's a great question. And it's it's a you know, if you had asked me that a number of years ago, I think it would have been very tough for me to answer because I was I was in the weeds. I was too close to the the forest to see the trees, so to speak. So what I mean by that is Sometimes when you're too close to the product, you're you're too in the moment with all the things that you're doing, it's hard to see the big picture. And so when I was you know in there just selling the the tools, I wasn't necessarily seeing the big picture of what what are the things that may need to change with a tool if we were going to build our own? What what are some of the things that we should not do? If we were going to build our own dashboard for our clients, if we were going to have our own company and have our own IP and have our own software. And so when we had that opportunity to do that, when Nathan Guard, our CEO, and myself decided to build our own software, we were able to think much more strategically versus just as salespeople. And so that that allowed us to think much differently than just being kind of on the front lines selling it, we got to step back and say, okay, what are the great things about these tools? And what should we continue doing with the tool we built? And what are some of the things that we should stop doing? And and all the other tools are doing that we don't want to do anymore. We want to do something different that'll kind of, I know this term is maybe overused, but we want to disrupt The market a little bit and do something a little different because it's always been done this way doesn't mean it has to be done that way again. So let's create something a little different that will excite people. It'll get people seeing these tools in maybe a little different way and actually see these tools as a a real value, not just something that is an annoyance. And so and something that can be really exciting to leverage versus a gosh, we have to do this. So that that that was something that really kind of was an aha for us as we stepped back from just being the salespeople to being more strategic and business owners. that was a that was a game changer for us.

Yeah, yeah. And that is, I mean it's it's a little unique, right? Now now some of that you have to take in that into context depending on some of those roles, right, Michaelus? So if if you if you're hiring for someone that needs to be a doctor. Okay, you have to have some of those credentials, right? You have to you have to have your doctorate, you have to have gone to school for those critical things to to have you know to do heart surgery, you know, those kinds of things, those there's some must-haves, right? But we very much look at so setting those things aside, we very much look at the soft skills because those are the things when you get into the role. That we believe are going to truly make you successful within that position. We can train, and those organizations can train you up on some of these technical aspects that you may not bring to the table immediately. Those things can be trained. But some of those soft skills, you either kind of bring those to the table and bring those to the role and bring those to the company, or you those are built in or not. And so if you don't have some of those soft skills it's not like you can train some of those things so I'll give you an example someone like a nurse and if you need a bit more of a bedside manner and you need someone that's a bit more empathetic and can kind of meet the the patient kind of where they're at That that's important for someone that's gonna be a nurse. And if you go into a a patient's room and you're kind of just really brash and you're hitting them over the head and you know, metaphorically speaking, and you're just not warm and fuzzy at all, you're just that's not something you're gonna be able to train. An individual. Those people, if if they're just kind of rough around the edges, that's a little bit more of who they are. And so you're not going to be able to train that up. So you want to find people that have those natural soft skills, and then you can train them on some of those technical aspects. And so the thing that that people are really struggling with nowadays, with the resumes, yeah, we'll look at a resume, but with AI, the way it is. People are using AI to tailor resumes so specific to the jobs that they are applying for now. All they do is go on, look at the job description, look at the description online and say, Okay, AI, Chat GPT, Cloud, whatever it may be, you know, make me a resume that pretty much mirrors what this job description is looking for. And then it And then it it develops a resume that perfectly matches that job description. And so when they send that in to that that company, of course, they look fantastic for that role because it checks all of those boxes that job description was looking for. So whether or not it's true or not, it doesn't matter. They're they're sending that in and then they may get an interview. Whether it's all fake or not, they're gonna waste someone's time because they're gonna get an interview. So you can't really rely on these resumes anymore. You have to use some s sort of objective tool like Talent Thrive Snapshot to get some objective data on an individual to really flesh out whether or not they have some of those soft skills that are necessary.

All right. You would think so. Yeah. I know. It's it's amazing, but it it happens all the time.

My gosh.

Holy smokes.

Yeah, that's that is a great question. And and so there yes, there are areas that we can do and will continue to leverage AI. that being said, we have to be very careful about how far we take that just because the nature of the tool we've built and the How that can cross over and potentially compromise the validation portion of our tool. So, in our space, in the assessment space, if you're going to be taken seriously at all from from an assessment standpoint, you really have to have a fully validated tool, which means you go through all the the validation checklist, if you will. And I I don't want to Bore all the listeners with with all the the the science of that. But there's a number of different pieces of validation that you have to go through and you have to have a third-party validation. So we did all that, and it took you know over two and a half years to have that completed. So it's a it's a long and arduous process. So we had that done. Now, my point in saying that is if you leverage AI too far, you can start. manipulating some of the correlation coefficients and all of these different things behind the scenes, which then could compromise your validation, which then no longer makes your tool valid, which then could lead to potential lawsuits. If someone says, Well, hey, I wasn't selected for this role. I feel like maybe I wasn't selected because your tool you know you know, s didn't select me or didn't score me high enough because you're leveraging AI to kind of score these things out. So we've got to be very careful about how we leverage AI in the use of our tool because we don't want it to mess with our validation. So what we are using it for is like in our dashboard, when we are trying to map certain whether it's learning management tools, you know, different coursework, different trainings. different development suggestions based on areas that candidates or different employees may struggle, where they're they maybe have a low score in a certain competency, we may leverage AI to say, okay, since you have a lower score in these areas, We suggest that you work on these different trainings or you take these different courses that AI has helped us kind of bubble to the top. That they are suggesting, Claude is suggesting, or ChatGPT is suggesting that you look at these certain trainings or courses based on your lower scores in these certain competencies. So we're leveraging in certain areas, but very careful about. not letting it tie into the validation and the the other pieces of our the scientific pieces of our tool, if that makes some sense.

It's amazing. Yes, it is. It is. I mean, when used in the right way, it can do some incredible things. You know, like all things, I worry, you know, if it gets into the wrong hands, what what happens there? But you know, it when used in the right way, AI is an incredible tool. It it is really amazing.

boy. you know, I think I guess when I think about some of the things that we've done, I guess maybe something that I kinda wish we had maybe not done that that I Looking at probably our marketing, and I think early on we were so worried about getting it exactly right. And and making kind of the the messaging and the marketing just perfect. And I think you know, because we had we had we had made the science and the tool exactly what it needed to be. Now we've always we're always Building off of that. We're always improving the tool. We're making nice little tweaks to the reporting and the dashboard. We just added e-commerce so people can purchase our snapshots and things directly from the dashboard. They don't even have to reach out to us if they don't want to do that. They certainly can, but they can buy it right from the dashboard and all those kind of things. So we're always upgrading all these things, but When we were first you know getting the roll this stuff out, when we were really going from beta testing to live with clients and all that stuff, we we wanted to make sure that the marketing and you whether it was podcast or whether it was you're doing little snippets on Instagram or YouTube, whatever the little videos, whatever it was, it felt like we were so concerned about getting the messaging just perfect. And I think the reality was We just need to put ourselves out there. Kind of like what you and I were talking about before we started recording of just getting yourself out there and you getting a message going and getting people to know what you're doing and getting some attraction there and getting people to see your not only some messaging. No, you want the message to be good, right? But it doesn't have to be perfect. And and getting people some eyeballs on who you are and what you're doing. And we were so focused on perfect when perfectly good would have been just fine. And and so I think if I could go back, I would have said, let's let's get some more stuff out there. Make sure it's good content, but it doesn't have to be perfect. And so I think we were just a little too sensitive about how great it had to be when it could have it would have been fine if it was just good enough.

It'll never be perfect.

That's right. Well, you can certainly you can go to our our website for sure and you can you can reach out to us through our website at talent dash thrive.com. you can certainly reach me through LinkedIn. on LinkedIn there. you can you know reach me at my email at Steve at talent-thrive dot com. So there's a number of ways you can connect with me. I'd be happy to take a direct connection and and chat with anybody who's who's interested in chat with me about our tool and a about our company for sure.

Thank you.